Saturday, July 5th, 2008

MTB: A Short Henry Coe Ride Report

On Saturday, we slept in as what most people did on the day after July 4th and did not pull into Hunting Hollow parking lot until almost 11. The sun was already cooking the ground by then. Perfect for heat training at Coe. Two riders returned from their ride of the day while we were gearing up. I was feeling a bit lethargic. Unlike my first time riding at Coe, I was more in the I-will-just-see-how-I-feel mood. As it turned out, we felt better as the day went on and did exactly what we set out to do on my first ride there (Plim’s route) but didn’t even get lost this time.

I sucked my 70oz camelbak dry mid-way, and we filtered water from Frog Lake thanking the new Katadyn Hiker Water Filter we just bought (a recommendation I got on MTBR). And I emptied it again, but it was on the way back to our car on Coit Road, so it was no big deal.

The creeks were either low or dry. We didn’t get our bikes wet at all this time.  There were quite a few people hanging out at China Hole cooling in the water holes. Other than that, we didn’t see more than two hikers on the trails.

When we got back to the car, I patted myself on the back, “Good job for riding Coe for 35+ miles (motionbased) on a hot day like this!” Just when I was feeling proud of myself, a lone figure pulled into the parking lot on a mountain bike. Oh, I recoganize that figure from a distance — it was Plim (Roy)!  As we found out, he just did a solo ride for 44+ miles all the way to Paradise Lake. We had to flip the map over to find where lake was. I shrank talking to him.

Following are a few photos from the trip:

Inch by inch, I will get there.


The tree snapped on Flat Frog Trail. It makes it a bit tricky to go through. Click on the image for a full size to see how I “rode” it.  Grin


The creek at the bottom of Middle Ridge is bone try.